Next Exit, Heart
by Luz Nocturnal
Summary: Sanji really ought to learn to give things to Luffy when he asks.


**Title:** _Next Exit, Heart_  
**Copyright:** One Piece and its characters © Eiichiro Oda. Lyrics © Barenaked Ladies. The only copyright I stake is intellectual. Thank you, drive through.  
**Notes/Spoilers:** Yes, Nami's absence is suspiciously convenient to the plot.  
**Dedication:** To firedraygon97, who wanted to see more Luffy/Sanji.   
Re-uploaded, errors corrected; my thanks to dethorats for acting as unofficial spelling police.

* * *

_ That's what you get  
When you confuse your stomach with your heart.  
--Barenaked Ladies, Stomach vs Heart _

"Please let me have it?" Seeing that asking nicely had gained him nothing, Luffy invoked a wibbling, pouty lip to aid him in his cause.

Sanji sighed. "For the fourth time, no." Explaining matters to Luffy was something that often required an inhuman amount of patience.

"Pleeease?" Luffy pursed his lips and clasped his hands, leaning over the table.

"No, dammit!" A patience that continued to elude Sanji.

"PleasepleasepleaseSanjiohplease?" He was growing desperate; it would be a crime to let the dainty cakes go to waste.

"What is it about 'no' that you don't understand? Let me give you a demonstration," he said, standing up and removing the small plate from the table. "This is _me_, leaving with the food. That is _you_, not getting the food."

Apparently not taking the display to heart, Luffy clambered over the table and locked his arms around Sanji's middle, his former barrage of breathless pleas morphing into some sort of howl vaguely reminiscent of "Noo!"

"Begging gets you nowhere! These are Nami-san's!" Sanji snapped, holding the plate of teetering pastries over his head and out of Luffy's reach. "I'll make you something later, but these are for Nami-san!"

"Nami's not here! I am! And I'm hungry!" Luffy reasoned.

"You ate lunch an hour ago!"

"And now I want dessert!" Luffy-logic was infallible, and trying to debate it was likened, by some, to slamming one's head against a wall. Repeatedly.

Setting his mouth in a determined line, Luffy made a bid for the plate at the top of Mount Sanji, succeeding only in knocking both chef and captain off-balance; the plate becoming the first victim as it slid from Sanji's hand. Sanji's jacket was the second victim, as one of the frosted cakes bounced down his lapel, being firmly squished between his torso and the squirming pirate captain.

"Food!" Luffy crowed as he watched the cakes fall from the heavens.

Sanji would have rather dealt with the wall.

"Now look what you've done!" He gawked at the sticky mixture on his jacket. His freshly cleaned, black jacket. "Idiot! Who's going to clean up this me--" Sanji paused mid-rant to gawk once again.

With concentration etched on his youthful features, Luffy was hard at work cleaning the white frosting off Sanji's lapel. With his tongue.

"You dipshit! What are you doing!" Sanji began the seemingly impossible task of untangling himself from his captain, who had forgotten to let go. He considered yelling for help, but that would mean someone would _see_ them, and he knew very well that the others would never let him live it down, no matter how innocent it truly was. And embarrassing, Sanji added to his mental checklist, as he felt heat creeping to his cheeks.

Seeing that nothing short of extreme violence, and possibly the death of at least one party, would free him, he began to pray that it would soon be over. It was a small cake, after all. He couldn't have slathered it with _that_ much frosting.

Sanji waited.

_Pretendit'sNami-sanpretendit'sNami-sanpretendit'sNami-san_, he told himself, eyes shutting tightly.

The loss of one sense amplified the others, as Sanji quickly realized. The warmth from Luffy's sunbaked arms bored into Sanji's back, as he tried to drown out the lapping sounds by focusing on the ocean's dull roar and the seagulls' all-too-quiet calling. Over the faint smell of smoke that always clung to him, and the ever-present scents of the ocean, Sanji noticed the sweet smell of the ruined pastries - that should have been Nami-san's, dammit - and something else, that he couldn't identify. Something like sun and sandalwood, which he found oddly calming.

Curiosity spurring him, he cracked an eye open to follow the trail his nose had found.

Immediately, dark, wide eyes found his own, a bright smile trailing after. "You're a great cook, Sanji!"

Sanji swallowed. That was simply impossible. Luffy smelled nothing like sun or sandalwood, or anything other than, well, _Luffy_. And yet, now that he was so close...

With only the barest trace of sugary topping remaining, Luffy drew back, finally releasing the captive cook. "There! All clean!"

Abruptly, the warmth cooled and the scent was carried away by distance and breeze. Sanji was glad to be rid of it, of course.

"Hey," said Luffy, gesturing down with a nod of his head, to the bits of cake smeared across Sanji's middle. "I'll get that next--"

"NO! No... I'll just... wash it myself. Go and, uh... lick your own shirt," he pointed to the mess that had become of Luffy's red vest. On legs that were weaker than he would admit, Sanji beat a hasty retreat to smoke, or sit, or do something, anything, to get away from that warmth he didn't feel and the thoughts that weren't running through his mind.

Mesmerized once again by food, Luffy gave little thought to things like chase, or why Sanji was walking so strangely. With a gleeful yip, he lifted the ends of his shirt and dug in.

Two minutes later, Luffy released the soggy tips of his vest and spotted the remains of the second cake on the deck, waiting innocently for its inevitable end. Seizing it, the pastry was popped into his mouth and quickly gone.

Looking around for any other confectionary refugees, he came up empty-handed and with a growling stomach. "Hmph. Weren't there _three_ of those?" Shrugging, the hungry pirate captain wandered off in the general direction of the kitchen.

_End._


End file.
